Starbucks backups to be addressed on College Avenue in Fort Collins

Coffee drive-thru will redesign the way cars move through to alleviate congestion on College.

Feb. 4, 2013

Traffic in the right lane of College Avenue is backed up as motorists wait their turn to enter the Starbucks Coffee drive-thru at 1708 S. College Ave., in this photo from October 2012. / V. Richard Haro/Coloradoan library

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Traffic backups on College Avenue near Prospect Road that are caused by Fort Collins drivers pulling into Starbucks for their morning coffee are being targeted for elimination.

At the repeated prompting of city officials, the property owners of 1708 S. College Ave. will redesign the way cars move through the drive-thru to help eliminate the backups.

Work is slated to begin in the next few weeks and be complete by mid-March, said city traffic engineer Joe Olson.

Olson said the redesign will add more “queue storage” to the site — in other words, more cars will be able to fit into the Starbucks property while waiting to order at the window.

The drive-thru opened on the site after an Arby's closed, and now drivers seeking their morning joe are sometimes backing up onto College, waiting in its easternmost lane for their turn.

On a recent weekday, short-term backups occurred every few minutes. And while they each lasted less than 20 seconds, it was enough to get tempers flaring and horns honking as northbound drivers squeezed down to two lanes to get by.